The prodigal daughter
by Enganar
Summary: Life in Jackson is killing Ellie. What was meant to be home has instead become hell.
1. Chapter 1

One week in, and she hates it here. She hates Jackson and everything in it, even though it's absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to her. It's given her a life she's never thought obtainable, left to stupid orphan daydreaming in the military dorms: of having a bedroom to herself, a bed, a desk, hot food, hotter water, and people who act decent.

Joel volunteers himself to Jackson's militia. Or Tommy volunteers him. They ask her what she wants to do and she has no fucking clue. It all seems so meaningless. A big blur. Busy work, nothing work, compared to the magnitude of the scar on her arm. A month ago, she was humanity's last hope. Now she's supposed to be something else. A kid again? That ship sailed. Someone who goes out and hunts for food? It sounds reasonable. Lots of open space and time to be alone - time to think and process all this - but Joel makes it pretty clear that if Ellie leaves Jackson it's only with him in tow.

They need him now, more than she does, so she relents. She doesn't even really care. She lets them convince her to help Maria maintain the wall. Sure, great. It might still be quiet there. Maybe she'll even get to have a view again, an occasional one, when this fucked-up world decides to look beautiful.

Time passes and so does spring, and then the days get hotter. Ellie works herself into a routine. She thinks months go by, but she doesn't really know for sure. Her entire world feels soft and curved, padded out with no more sharp corners, and Jackson, Maria, and Joel's lying face lose their textures when she looks at them too long, like she's staring at them through a screen. It feels a lot like that song Riley had on her tape. Comfortably numb.

She attends some Jackson get-together with Joel. Everyone comes with their best manners, and there's food and guitars and firelight, and a feeling to everything Ellie's never felt. She's never experienced so many people together, and in a good way. Not there to be suspicious of each other, or angry, or looking for things to steal. People genuinely enjoying each other's company, sharing stories, and laughing. She admits it's addictive. Some time into the night she's even pulled out one of her pun books, and she's got the group in stitches. Ellie even hears herself laughing. That's new. That's a relief.

Then, between flipping pages, Joel reaches out and tugs the sleeve of her shirt down over her right arm. Ellie didn't realize it was riding up, coming painfully close to exposing what she knows waits underneath. He pats her, and the brief touch makes her hidden scar burn for hours.

Ellie glances over but Joel doesn't look at her, busy saying something to Tommy next to him with his perfect poker face.

Her stomach turns over. She tells her last joke that night.

Then the nightmares begin.

Sam is in some. Tess in others. Riley in the rest. They take turns talking to her in the dark, with clarity to their voices and a visceral rawness to their dead, rotting faces that Ellie is losing track of when she's awake or asleep.

Riley, always Riley, talks to her. Riley never knew when to shut up. It starts when Ellie appreciates things like a working bathtub, or a beeping microwave, or a pair of sunglasses, and thinks to herself that Riley would have really liked that. _Hell yeah I would've_ , Riley one day answers, laughing away the quiet. _Glad you're enjoying your victory spoils, Brick Master._

Riley intrudes in on all of her dreams like a fucking pest. She's either dead or dying, all over again, like the seasons on endless repeat. One night, she sits on Ellie's windowsill, plays with Ellie's dusty, unused switchblade, and talks about bicycles. She won't fucking shut up until Ellie agrees to build one. Before Ellie can, Riley turns around, and she's got giraffe's eyes, big and brown and mirror-wet. She stands over Ellie's bed and sings something and then her face splits open, bone yawning in halves as her giraffe eyes mulch, and out of the gore comes fungal plates and unwinding spores.

She sits on Ellie's chest and chokes her, and then she's David, leaned down close, his too-tight skin stretched like candle wax over his bones. His eyes violate her with such an undressed look of obsession and want. "I got you, babe," he whispers.

She wakes up sweat-soaked and unable to move, her brain awake too fast before her body can unlock from sleep. She can't move any of her limbs, and can barely breathe, air raking in-and-out through her paralyzed lips. She hears clicking everywhere, in her bedroom, in her bed, in her head. Tears roll from her eyes, and Ellie immediately cries for Joel. She can't get the mobility or breath to get his name out, and stumbles on its syllables and vowels. She thinks she spends what feels like forever, absolutely helpless, absolutely terrified, and crying without sound.

Then she can move again, and when Ellie does, it's to find their small house empty. Joel returns noisily some minutes later, freed from a late militia patrol, speaking softly back-and-forth with some strange woman's voice. She says something and it makes him laugh in his stupid Joel way, that hitched grunt of amused approval. A month ago, only Ellie in the entire world made Joel laugh like that. Her chest hurts in some funky way. It feels like loss, and at the same time, the greatest sense of relief.

When he bids good-byes and checks on her, Ellie pretends to be asleep. Joel pets back her hair without a sound.

She spends all her free time at work, at the wall. It is the only thing left that keeps the voices at bay, Sam and Tess and Riley asking Ellie what happened, why wasn't she the cure, why did the Fireflies let her go, why did they all die for nothing?

Maria helps. Maria talks a lot, but in a nice way. Ellie doesn't ask, but she is sure Maria was once someone's big sister or someone's favourite aunt. She knows all the right things to say, and is parental without being too hovering or overbearing - Joel could take some lessons. She seems starved for female company, or at least Ellie's in particular - young and innocent or whatever the fuck - and is always somewhere nearby.

She doesn't push Ellie to open up. It's a relief, because Ellie is certain that won't be happening soon or later or even forever. She sneaks glances of the woman, Tommy's wife, and wonders just how much of everything she knows.

Would she be surprised to see the scar of Ellie's arm? Would she scream and get all fucked up and turn a gun on her? What would she say to know this stupid whatever girl, the girl she's been chatting up for months now, could have been the fucking solution for all of this bullshit? How much did Tommy tell her?

Tommy knows something, that Ellie is sure. She saw the disappointment burn bright on his face to see her return at Joel's side. The messiah teenager who ended up amounting to nothing, the one so many people fought and died for, and what for. Tommy wouldn't have told his wife. Give her hope then rip it away. Ellie knows hope is dangerous here. Took Riley, took Tess. Near damn well took her too, if not for Joel there to save her.

Ellie spends one evening at the top of the wall, looking out over barb wire and spires and watching the darkness beyond. An entire world out there, silent and deadly, beckoning her in the same way it did Boston. Yeah, and I survived you, motherfucker, she tells it. She looks down, and it's not a bad jump, and with the right gloves she could even navigate the wire. She could hop over and no one would notice. Change worlds in the blink of an eye.

The idea consumes her.

She never attempts it. There'd be no effort going over, but it'd be impossible for her to get back. She doubts even she could sneak back in, and then there'd be Joel-sized hell to pay. He'd make her life a nightmare just when she's enjoying this wide, awkward berth he's given her, free to her thoughts, alone like she's always been and should be.

But she thinks about it constantly, her great escape, staged elaborate capers and all adventure-like in the complicated way she gets out. When Ellie does, she does something bad ass and super kung fu all the way back to Utah. She makes herself way more special than the other immune people and somehow cures this bullshit. She doesn't let this fucking infection end on a cliffhanger.

She wonders how Joel would go on without her. She watches him spend time with that woman, though it's pretty sad to look at, and they are both awkward and pathetic talking to each other. Joel's still smiling with his body language though, Ellie can tell. He likes her. He's bonding, which is a relief. After that whole Henry thing.

He patrols and cleans guns and instructs the greens on tracking and shooting, but Ellie can tell Joel's mind is on other things. He builds things out of wood whenever he has a chance to. Tables and chairs and shit. He's good at it, like he's done it before. But he never requests to go into construction, or even admits to his strange new passion. He's set on the militia, and Ellie knows why. Joel doesn't ever want to lose his edge. He's on alert, and he's protecting his new home.

That's what this is. A home to him. And Ellie wants to believe that would be enough for Joel, enough to hold him down and keep him happy, long after she's gone. She supposes she's made the decision a long time ago, and is only ever realizing it now.

She has to get out.

There's no way in hell she can ever tell him, so Ellie tries her hand at letters. She tries to write how she can't be here and it's time for her to go, and that they had a good thing but now it's her time to be alone, and she's ready or whatever. She sucks at letters. Riley critiques her doodles of Angel Knives.

She goes through drafts and is sure to burn any evidence, not wanting Joel to read anything before she's ready. It nearly happens anyway, stupid mistake on her part, when he interrupts her writing while listening to her walkman. Ellie's heart stops to wonder how much Joel read. Nothing, it seems, either because he respects her privacy or he's just too busy looking weird and awkward with the guitar he's carrying.

He sings her a song and it breaks her fucking heart. Ellie hates Joel even more for how weak he makes her feel, every single fucking time. Nothing made her cry, not even Riley dying, before meeting him. Now she can't stop the tears, or that crushing, squeezing pain in her chest, or the guilt that flints up at every stolen glance of her half-finished, half-covered good-bye letter.

His stupid song tells her that she's going to fucking break him. It pins her down like Joel's guitar does, left too-big and awkward and clunky, on Ellie's lap.

She doesn't know what to do. Either she stays and loses her mind, or she leaves and shatters him forever. Ellie guesses it would be easy if she could just learn to lie like Joel does. If she could just make the same music he's so good at. She dares a halting hand to guitar's strings, trying to imitate one of those haunting chords Joel made sing. It strums discord.

So Ellie tries, just for him. She hates him now, but he's the only one who never left. He kept her alive. He, for the first time, made her feel safe. He held her that day when her hands were glued with blood and her broken childhood rained down in smoke and fire.

She swallows back the David nightmares. She thinks away the bad thoughts. She ignores Riley, doesn't talk to her anymore, doesn't listen to her daily bullshit. Ellie helps Joel build a chair. She bends a nail and splinters the wood a little but he never looks prouder. Ellie meets Esther, and she's as nice as Joel says, maybe a bit of a dork. The woman tells good jokes, and they make Joel laugh. Ellie listens to the slow, halting stories of Sarah, and she curls up at Joel's hip some nights and reads her comic books. Just as promised, he plays her guitar on really warm days, and he teaches her his songs.

Ellie keeps her scar covered, day and night, and stops looking at it, stops touching it. She pretends she's like all the rest of them in Jackson. Just people. Just human beings. Not immune. Not a cure.

She's getting pretty good at this. A real Joel Jr. It isn't hard because all she's doing is just living her life, right? The one Joel made sure she could have. The one that wasn't ever the cure, and didn't have to save anyone anymore, didn't have to fix anything. The life the Fireflies didn't even want in the end. Or so Joel said.

Then she's at work, at the wall, and Ellie suddenly doesn't think she'll ever stop screaming. When she comes to, or whatever, Maria is there, looking white as broken bone and too scared to touch her. It's so fucking embarrassing, losing her mind. So she runs off and hides.

But Ellie doesn't spend too long cowering. She goes back, afraid Maria will tell Joel - of course Maria will tell Joel - and corners her. Ellie summons up one of her most breathtaking performances, all of her apologies trained straight out of military dorm days of convincing frowning handlers, and says it's just stuff she's going through. Shit she's seen, like bodies and stuff. She's really OK, she promises. Please don't tell Joel, because he means well, but he just makes it worse. He hovers and says shitty things that never helps anyone.

Maria only looks half-convinced and still looks reticent to even touch Ellie, afraid that too-rough or too-gentle handling may well both break the girl. Ellie isn't sure herself. But the woman gives her a spiel about being there to talk to, and there's even a man in Jackson who used to be some counsellor and Maria wants Ellie to talk to him too, and only then she'll agree not to tell Joel.

Ellie is so sick of adults everywhere.

After a summer of neglect, Ellie finally speaks to Riley again in the dark of her empty house. _I guess I am losing my fucking mind_ , she says.

 _Won't be anything left for the fungus_ , Riley replies.

"Hey, fuck you. Immune, remember? Though good lot that did." Ellie rolls up her sleeve and picks at her scar. It shines by candlelight. Skin shouldn't shine that way.

"That blows. Life blows," says Riley. Ellie can pretend to feel the warmth of her best friend's back against her side. She wishes she could lean on her, just one last time.

"I know."

Riley hums under her breath. "But I thought we agreed not to give up. Guess you checked out already? Suppose it's all you can do. Out there, they're all dead already, because without a cure it's gonna happen. You'll be dead too. Hell, you're carrying on like you already are. Why even wait? Shoot your stupid ass now and get it over with."

Ellie glances over and she's all alone. Alone and crazy and talking to her fucking self. But for the first time since spring and Salt Lake City, she feels awake - almost alive.

The house is still empty an hour later. Joel and company are still on night shift, and Ellie remembers him mentioning rumours of a couple clickers around, though no one's seen anything legit. Infected haven't found their limping way to Jackson yet.

She writes him a letter. Her final draft. She thanks him and loves him but tells him he doesn't have to make her feel safe anymore. That he can't follow her and can't find her and they won't be seeing each other again. Please stay safe and keep her guitar nice for her.

She leaves the letter on the shitty chair they made. She takes a moment and imagines him, how he looked and what he was wearing this morning when she last saw him, realizing that would be the last time she'd ever see him again. He was smiling then, in his way. Ellie stores the image to memory, filed under Joel. Family. Dad.

Ellie says good-bye to all the things she never really deserved in the first place, bed and desk and shitty Ellie-built chair, and ghosts out of the house. She takes her dusty backpack and her mother's switchblade. She packs light supplies, hawks a few road maps and leaves a note to tell Maria sorry, slips around Jackson's skeleton crew like a motherfucking spider, and vaults over the wall. It's as easy as she first suspected.

She hits the ground running and doesn't stop. It's stupid to do, running like an idiot in the dark, but the world feels different. She is new, changed, light, like she's pulled off dragging chains and now weighs like a fucking feather. She runs so fast she can barely feel her sneakers on the ground. She trips on a tree root and laughs. Laughs!

Her eyes water, and her lungs burn, and Riley has finally shut up, and maybe is even smiling down on her, if there's such thing as a better place.

Ellie, for what she told Sam, at this moment is kinda changing her mind. Maybe she does believe in it - the better place. Maybe she can even make it happen right here.

Jackson's lights soon disappear, swallowed into darkness. Ellie is alone now, alone in every way that counts, but she never stops running.

Every step rubs a hard corner through her pack, between her shoulder blades. She's brought her books, because it's going to be a long trip, and Ellie is going to need a few jokes for the road.

* * *

A/N: Originally meant as a one-shot to vent this idea from my head - a What If after the game's events - but I believe there will be more to come. Perhaps even some drabbles to flesh out past before and during-game moments. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

So Ellie wakes up and there's really only one thing she can say.

"Shit."

* * *

Jackson winks out at her back.

She stops running only when her legs give out. It's the first time in months she's tested her body to its very limits, and Ellie misses this pain. Things make more sense when she aches.

Ellie crumples against some tree and lands, face-up, in a drying pile of leaves. Their sweet, cellar smell tell her it's fall. She feels punch-drunk enough to flap her arms and make foliage angels, and maybe if it were fall last year, when things were different and she was different too, she would have. Instead, Ellie sits up, digging through her pack, navigating its cluttered contents by touch in total darkness.

She holds her lit flashlight in her mouth and studies an open map. Months of living underfoot to Joel's militia work means Ellie knows the outlying territory by cartographic heart, and she notes the positions of nearby patrols. She plots a course around them.

Something knots in her gut and she wipes bits of dried leaves from her knit gloves. It's a strange feeling, because Ellie avoids bad things like hunters or military or the fucking infected, not the defensive patrols of good people. Of what was supposed to have been her home. It's weird to mentally group Jackson into that divide - her against the world - but it's just how it is now. It's part of the decision she's made. She's a suspicious figure in the dark now, and they may sooner shoot her first than sort out if she's some ninety-pound clicker. Or, worse, she runs into Joel, and he'll put worse than bullets in her. Things like questions. And ultimatums. And 'I'm not angry, just disappointed.'

Just thinking about him hurts.

The initial high abandons her, and Ellie feels like a stupid little girl again, alone and chilly in her cooling sweat, sitting in the dark in a bed of leaves. What is she even doing?

For a moment, she reconsiders. Jackson is safe, Jackson is warm, and Jackson is comfortable, even if Jackson never has been and never will be home. Ellie can go back and Maria can tell Joel what happened, and they'll make her talk to that counsellor and whoever else, and they'll say crap like she's got issues or disorders, and she's not the cure, not the answer, not the fix, just a kid who saw too much shit and is going funny-farm because of it. Maybe they'll even get her head on straight, and she'll thank them, and she'll tell Joel sorry, and she'll make him all happy and proud and shit. Just by being there, alive.

Until he dies. Until she dies. Until everyone there dies, and Jackson overgrows, and one day looks like no one ever existed. They don't leave any trace or stories or nothing to pass down. Their memories rot away with the rest of it. They die, either soon or just a bit after, like the rest of humanity. All roads lead to the same end, she remembers Riley saying once.

But Riley, the drama queen, didn't know there can be a cure. A cure in Ellie's own fucking blood. It can't be as Joel told her. It can't be all for nothing.

And Ellie makes up her mind, now and forever, never to reconsider again. She stands up on her shaky legs, pauses once, then keeps going on her way. For many reasons she never looks back.

She's so wired she walks the night without sleep. Ellie keeps her flashlight off and sticks to the dirt roads, listening - fuck, she's so rusty when it comes to listening. By dawn, when she's sure by now Joel must have come home, must have called for her, must have looked for her, must have found her letter, must have read it, Ellie hears sounds that aren't her own. She ducks behind the fossil of an old fence and watches, hand on her bow (sorry, Maria, I'm so sorry, I need it, was along the lines of the note she left) as she waits. Three men walk by, carrying their lives on their backs and having some argument whether bear piss kills lice. She makes a face. Super nasty. They stop just four feet from her, and crouched down, Ellie has to stay so still. She stares at them and feels nothing but the weight of her switchblade in her back pocket. She holds her breath because then they would surely smell her.

She's hiding at belt-height and their crotches hover in scary close. One of them scratches his balls and she rolls her eyes. They continue on. They never see her.

She spends the day walking and never runs into another soul. Ellie is too keyed up even to feel hunger, but she forces herself to eat some homemade granola (sorry sorry sorry Maria, I needed this food to take, I promise I'll make this up to everyone.) She checks her maps, draws with a pen the roads that will send her southwest, and both praises and curses backwater Wyoming's lack of literally anything save for trees, more trees, bride of trees, son of trees, that one tree over there, and deer shit, because while it's keeping her pretty isolated from bad things, her hike doesn't yield her any towns or potential supplies.

Ellie feels fortunate her long coma in Jackson didn't totally kill her endurance. She is way more out-of-breath now than she remembers she was, on the road with Joel, but she keeps up a steady clip and reasons by her map and the sunlight that she's put a couple dozen miles and a shitload of hours between her ass and Jackson. The reality grounds her. She really has left it behind. She really isn't ever going back.

Too heavy. She pulls out the trump card, and reads some puns on her walk. I used to be a banker... but I lost interest. Ha! She doesn't get it.

Some time later, she stumbles, and realizes with some annoyance that she's exhausted. Ellie doesn't remember tuning out. Something about the open road and having her mind so blissfully quiet - no Riley talking, no bad thoughts, no noise - must have put her on autopilot. She diverts to get some depth into the forest and settles. She builds a lean-to the way Joel taught her. Collects some dead wood, bits and branches, and arranges them around as her noisemakers.

She builds a fire. Ellie knows she probably shouldn't. They have a way of attracting attention. But it gets dark fast and tonight feels different from last night, no longer mitigated by her high and buffered with the reassuring safety of Jackson still within reach. It's far gone. And now she is well and truly alone for the first time since - since.

Thoughts of last winter make Ellie flint sparks in double-time. She gets it built fast and sits, crossed up tight like a lock, in her fire's yellowy glow, stealing companionship from its heat and moving light. It makes her feel a little less alone, because that's what she is now, isn't she? Completely fucking alone.

Her worst fucking fear. And, thanks to motherfucking irony, apparently her damn reason for existing. Ellie pokes irritably at her fire. She's alone, and it's not like anyone can see, so she cries a bit too. Then she stomps out her fire, palms her switchblade, and beds down under the camouflage of some leaves. She falls asleep hearing every single fucking awful sound the forest makes. The forest has a shit lot of them. Her eyes close.

It's morning when they flutter open.

* * *

"Shit."

"That's one way of putting it," Joel says back. Just like that, he's there, sitting right in the heart of Ellie's makeshift camp, dressed in his plaid wool coat and with his back to her, turning in his dirty hands a switchblade that looks an awful lot like Ellie's. What's the odds of that, she thinks dozily.

She just lays there, staring, not really getting it, blinking her eyes to make sure this is all really happening. That it's not just one of Ellie's weird psycho dreams. She feels for her knife, and it's not there, and no fucking shit, it's because Joel has it now, genius. He fucking found her. She closes her eyes, her insides twisting up, and tries to sink just that much deeper under her moss and leaves. Fuck this. Fuck her. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Joel snaps the knife shut, giving it a thoughtful toss and catching it clean out of the air. The action makes him glance at his own hands, and he rubs his palms against his jeans. His voice is a rumble, low and sleepless. "Are you gonna tell me what it is you're doing?"

No use hiding. After a beat, Ellie pushes off the ground, arranging her achy body to sit up. Dead leaves shuck everywhere, and she rubs their crumbly pieces from her coat. She feels like she was just caught doing something wrong, and she hates it. Because she's not doing anything wrong at all, and this is why she knew she couldn't tell him, why she was supposed to have never seen him again. She feels like a fucking child. "I don't owe you shit," she hears herself blurt back, ever-so-mature. She sniffs and rubs her runny noise. "But I left you a really nice letter. You should go back and read it."

"I did," says Joel. He still doesn't look at her. His eyes are on the trees, the woods. "S'why I'm here."

Seriously? He had time to do all that and he still managed to catch up? Find her and sit who knows how long, and wait for her to wake up, even? Ellie wants to call bullshit. There is no fucking way. Joel must hear her brow furrow at his back - though don't ask her fucking how, probably with his alien superpowers - and he adds, "You forget I'm better at this than you." Then he turns, just a twitch of his head over the rise of his shoulder, and he squints back at her. She thought she'd never see his face again. He looks like he hasn't slept. "So what is this about? Did something happen?" His interrogation pauses and his voice thins out. "Did someone do something to you?"

Ellie can't deal with this. This can't be happening. He's pulling that protective shit, and he's going to ruin everything. All she wants is this to not be real. She summons up all the venom in her blood, all her resentment and anger and spite, and injects it off the needle of her tongue. "I hate it there. I hate you."

Joel is quiet a moment. Then he concedes. "That's fair. And you can think that way all you like. But you know this- all this here- ain't happening."

And there it is. Late to the party, but better than it not showing at all. Ellie feels a white-hot knife of rage cut into her, right into the soft give of her belly, twisting cruelly until she tastes copper at the back of her throat. She bites her tongue, already sneering, temper good and lost. She clamps down on it. Good. Get fucking mad. Stay mad. Just stay mad. "Fuck you," she snaps, kicking the rest of the leaves off her legs. "You're not telling me everything. I know. Something happened back there, with the Fireflies, and me. You forget this is about me, Joel, remember? Walking fuckin' cure?"

He sets her knife down to the ground and angrily faces her, attention won. Joel frowns in clear warning. "Now you keep your voice down-"

"No!" Ellie interrupts. Fuck him, this is her camp, she can do whatever she fucking wants. "What, I can't even _say_ it now?! It's who I am! I know you love to pretend like I'm not! And now I'm right back in a fucking cage. Just like in Boston."

Joel's face shows all the signs of a developing headache. His right hand comes up like he wants to pinch the bridge of his nose, but for some reason he aborts he gesture. "Ellie, back there may well be as good as it gets. Hell, that is as good as it gets. I've lived a long time and I've seen how bad it gets out here." He looks away, then back. "You've seen it too," he reminds, like she's somehow magically fucking forgotten that particular trauma. "You know I'm right. Back in Jackson is your life now. Everywhere else is just death. You know you don't get a choice here."

Ellie angrily picks her fingernails against the buttons on her pockets. Yes, she fucking does have a choice. That's not the problem here. The problem is he's going to take it from her. The problem is she's just going to sit here and let him. It's getting hard to stay angry, when her heart feels like it's being crushed in a fucking vice. He's not even trying to understand her. Joel of all people. She really is alone. "You don't get it. I know you just want us to live there, but I can't. When I look at anyone -"

Her eyes briefly squeeze shut. She won't look over at Joel, because Ellie knows if she does, she'll lose her words. She forces them out, now or never.

" - they're dead already. OK? That's all I see. I'm just pretending like I'm one of them. And I'm not, Joel. And one day they're gonna see this fucking bite on my arm and they'll look at me like - like I'm the piece of shit who let them all die."

"Ellie," he urges, or maybe even pleads. In just one word, Joel sounds exhausted, vulnerable. Ellie presses her attack while she can.

"Just tell me what happened," she demands, and now she's looking at him. Making their eyes meet, and for a moment Joel is a deer in headlights, like Ellie was the one who snuck up on him, found him hiding in a grave of leaves. "You swore. I know you're lying about something. I'm not stupid. Why can't you tell me?" Desperation floods out of nowhere and chokes her up. Ellie blurts the words out before she can even think them. "Why do you hate me?"

Joel looks like he's been sucker-punched. He gets up on one knee and shifts closer, now parallel to her cold fire pit. He reaches out but doesn't try to touch. "Ellie, look at me. I'm not a good person, I know. I've done wrong things. Except for this. Maybe someday you'll get it. You don't have to." His eyes crinkle, and she hates, hates, hates that she doesn't know why. "It's not your lot."

Ellie balls up her hands. She somehow collects a fistful of leaves in one, so she throws it at him. "Not my _lot_?! You're so full of bullshit!"

All that softness falls off his face like gangrene. Joel chills over, and now Ellie sees he's starting to finally look mad. She's hit some nerve, and fuck him, she could care less. His voice goes low like a warning. "Now hear me. You had best watch your mouth. You scared the shit out of me. Here I thought you would've smartened up. We have it good there."

She crosses her arms and draws in on herself. She's so mad she's sweating under her coat. "So what happens now? Are you gonna drag me back?"

Joel leans back on his heels, blinking mildly down at her, no doubt expecting more theatrics. He meets sullen with laconic. "That's the plan." Then he looks back at the tree line and blows out a breath. Ellie notices it's visible in the early morning air. Winter will probably arrive within weeks. "But it's safe right here for now. I'm thinking first we talk a bit. The real bullshit here was in that note you left me. How the hell was I supposed to think, reading that? So, tell me: what're you aiming to do?"

Ellie pauses in her sulking. She didn't think Joel would actually ask her this. Just spew his shit, cut her down with a lecture, and drag her to Jackson when she has nothing left in her to fight back, argue with, or keep convincing herself. She thinks of the many eloquent, inspiring ways she could announce this, and how she'll explain her noble goals, her decision, her great plan. In her head she sounds so passionate.

"I don't know," she mumbles instead, quiet and feeling shy. Ellie draws in on herself, rubbing her covered scar that's started itching. Joel finally wants to hear her out and she doesn't want to say it. She's afraid finally hearing her decision out loud, in her own voice and by her own words, will sound as childish as it may well be. He might say it's stupid. He might even laugh at her, that stupid Joel laugh-grunt, like Ellie is just another one of her bad puns.

She doesn't think she can trust him. No, Ellie knows she can't trust him, and the thought makes her heart break. She chances a look up from her lap, and Joel's looking at her, waiting. She exhales, and forces a shrug. "Go back to Utah. Find out what you're not telling me. Get Marlene and do something with this. Save the fuckin' world." She shrugs again. "You know."

Joel doesn't call her stupid. He doesn't laugh either. He just shuts his eyes then turns them back on the trees. He doesn't look surprised. Doesn't look happy either. "You ask me, the odds are on you dying out here."

Ellie turns on him, insulted. She's not a fucking child. "Well, good thing I didn't ask you-"

Joel meets her eyes easily again, all their fire, all their fury. The look in his shuts her up. She can see the warning signs; his temper is peeking through his edges, a slow burn as Ellie knows, but still there. He sets his jaw, giving no ground to her venom. "It took me a under a day to track you. You're young and sloppy. I could've been anyone- anyone who'd seen you sleeping. _Anyone_ , Ellie. You will die out here, and how does that fix things?"

She hits her limit and sees red. Furious, insulted, and just so frustrated that he just can't fucking understand, Ellie pushes up to her feet. She's tired of sitting, tired of waiting, tired of doing nothing.

"Fuck you!" she snarls. Her voice jumps some shrikes from a nearby tree, and they fly noisily off. Joel goes tighter than a turned guitar string, alert and frosty. Ellie doesn't care. She's too pissed, pushed too far, and not even a fucking bloater staggering in will make her stop. "At least I would have tried! At least I'd be doing something! I can't be scared of shit like that anymore, because all it'll do is just keep me stuck in Jackson. It's amazing. There's real actual people. But I'm just hiding in there. And if I don't do something they'll all be dead." She kicks angrily, impotently, at a tree root curling up from the earth, hugging herself, hating herself. "I don't deserve it there, Joel, OK? Movies and hot baths and shit. It's stuff Riley would have loved. She should have had this. She was better than I was. She was stronger and... and she knew. I'm just this dumb fucking kid. She would've saved us already."

Ellie stares at her sleeved right arm, then closes a hand over her wrist. She inhales sharply, a test to see if she's going to cry, but her eyes are dry. Hope is so draining, and the volume bleeds out of her voice. It strips to a whisper. "But it's up to me. I don't care if I'm not the only immune. I still feel like I'm the last chance. I'm going to find the Fireflies. I just know this can't be for nothing. And then I'll - just - I don't know."

Silence puts distance between them. Ellie spends what feels like a minute staring down at her sneakers. Soon they'll get dirty, she thinks, with mud and blood.

Finally the quiet starts to feel unsettling, because there's no words out of Joel, no interruption, no argument, no lecture, no orders, and Ellie sneaks a glance.

Joel's still kneeled there where she left him, looking cold and snuffed out like a second fire pit. He's looking at her, and there's a pinch to his eyes. Ellie gauges it. Not sympathy. Not hurt or feeling something for her words. The light catches his eyes and then she recognizes it. It's fear. He's looking at her like this is the last time he'll ever hear her have some stupid teenage tantrum at him. Like he's already filing away this moment as something precious or whatever, so when that time comes, he can take the memory and make a decision. Either forget it forever or let it become the barrel to shove into his mouth.

It scares her that he's looking at her this way. Ellie has no fucking idea why. Her lips part but she has no words to say, and she feels frankly terrified to ask him. What the fuck is he so scared of? Why is he staring at her like she's already dead? Why does this have anything to do with -

Oh.

Her shoulders slump. Now her eyes start to sting. "Fuck, Joel. It was gonna be like the monkeys, wasn't it. In the cages."

She stares at him closely and sees a muscle flicker in his jaw. He looks off her and back to the trees. His hand is on his broken watch.

"Joel," she implores, stepping closer. He's not allowed to cut her out now.

"I'm sorry, Ellie," is all he says. He at least says it like he knows it's not, and will never be, enough.

Her stomach flips. Ellie wants to puke.

Because she knows what he did. She has an idea. The Fireflies never needed Ellie, not Ellie as a person, a survivor, a fighter, a superhero. They needed Ellie as a thing, or not even Ellie at all. Just the what's-it inside her, laughing at her from inside her own blood. She knows something happened, because she's here and not someone's experiment. Because she woke up in strange clothes with Joel stinking like fresh scattershot. Whatever happened is between Joel and the Fireflies, and she isn't supposed to know. She wants to ask what it is he did, how many bullets he used, but she doesn't need to. She already knows. She knows because she did it too. She laid waste to those fucking cannibals one winter ago, lead them away and picked them off like game if it meant making sure he'd be alive one more day. She fought like Riley told her to. She promised Joel's quiet body she would. Did he promise hers?

That's all she was in the end. A fucking body. A prop. A monkey. Everything she went through, everything she did, and all for...

There's only one thing Ellie can do. She lets out a scream and kicks her backpack as far as the fucking thing will go. All of her supplies scatter and get lost to the trees.

Joel jerks to the noise but makes no move to stop her. She drops to a crouch, curling up, fisting her hands into her sweaty hair and willing back the tears that won't listen. She is so fucking stupid.

"I don't know what to do," Ellie hears her own voice croak. She doesn't even feel herself speaking. She's a million miles away. "This is so fucked up." She swipes at her eyes. "I can't go back, and I have to do this. Even if it's not the Fireflies, then. I can't just. I... please don't make me go back."

"Ellie," urges above her shoulder, low and pained. She looks up, startled to see Joel so close so fast. She's forgotten how fucking quiet he can be. He's looking down on her with guilt, maybe some pity, but not apology. Not a lick of apology for what he did for her - to her. His lips move to say more and Ellie cringes back, palming her hands over her ears. He's going to tell her something fucked up, like she doesn't owe anyone anything, or that it's OK to be a kid, or that he needs her, and it's going to break her irreparably. He'll win and she'll lose, and the fight will be gone out of her forever. Her hands are shaking. She'll be done. She'll go to Jackson and just be what they want her to be and wait for her turn to die.

So she begs, "Don't- don't say it, OK? Don't say what you're gonna say, because I'll say yes. I don't have a reason anymore, Joel. This is all I got left."

A sigh leaves Joel's weathered lips. "C'mere," he says, and extends a hand down to her. It's callused and work-stained and there's bruises at the knuckles. It's a hand that's murdered countless times and will do again. When she refuses to take it, it turns to fold quietly around her wrist, and patiently the man encourages Ellie back to her feet. She complies bonelessly, mounted to place when he pins both hands down on her shoulders. The touch is light, but all she feels is its burden.

"It wasn't like this before," Joel admits as he carefully smears her tears away. Maybe he thinks she's crying for dead Fireflies, and he won't let her. His fingers stop when they curl at the back of her neck, thumbing along her ponytail. "Fathers had to let their girls go sometimes. Go off and live her life, make her mistakes. Let her learn that living doesn't have to be scary." Now apology tightens his eyes. "But it ain't that way anymore. Every day is life and death. And I gave you a promise once."

Then Joel looks up over her head and breathes out. He narrows his eyes down on her. "You do this, and I come with you. You finish it, then we go on home together after. To whatever home you want."

Ellie snaps awake out of feeling sorry for herself. She cranes back her head and eyes Joel, feeling only suspicion and dismay. She searches his sunbaked face for the hidden guilt trip. Even if she can't seem to find it, she won't let him pull this shit on her. "It's not your problem anymore."

And then the fucker smiles. Like it's some sad, sad joke she'll probably never get. "It is. Yes it is, baby girl."

"What about - Tommy? And Esther? You have a life there. You're happy now." Ellie accuses. He would be a dirty fucking liar to disagree, too, because she's seen him. "Why can't you just let this go? You could get married. And then..."

"Then what?" His hands congregate back on her shoulders and Joel draws back to regard Ellie at arm's length. He's frowning like she's insulted him, and deeply, straight to the core. "That's not how things go. You've never been a replacement. And there ain't nobody who could replace you. That's just how it is. We all have to find a reason."

He won't say it, but Ellie knows what Joel means. No, no, no. No more reason bullshit. She gives a squirm to shrug him away, and when Joel doesn't let go, she pulls out the big guns.

"I don't trust you. I don't want you here, don't you get it? I'm done with this being about you. You and your daughter."

It hits. It hurts, and Ellie almost wants to apologize for the way Joel's face twists to hide that flicker of - of Sarah. Then he girds back down like steel, and almost looks disappointed. Is that all you got, girl? "If you think your big bad words will scare me away, you got a lot of growing up to do."

"It's not like you owe me anything. If this is about last winter, you know, when." Ellie's mouth twists briefly. "You helped me a million times more. We're square. I'm not holding you to shit. You were right, OK? I'm not your kid. You're not my dad."

His hands squeeze her shoulders. "Ellie."

"We're two strangers. You were getting paid. And I got your friend killed."

"Ellie, goddamnit-!"

Then with a burst of strength and anger, Ellie catches Joel off-guard enough to free herself, shaking him off, because she's not a fucking child. She's not a child, not his child, and hasn't been anyone's child for a long fucking time. She pushes him off and back-pedals away, because he needs to hear this and he needs to fucking well listen.

"No! Cut the shit! I tried for you, Joel!" Ellie yells up at him, suddenly afraid he won't believe her, won't think that she did at least that. She really did, so please believe her. Please, please believe her. "I tried so much but I'm broken. I'm so fucked up now. I'm sorry I can't just live there with you. You weren't supposed to find me. I have to do this."

He stares at her a moment, then steps closer again. The sobs are bubbling up in her throat, and Ellie shakes her head. It's enough a fight just to ward her tears back, never mind also this fucking stupid, stubborn man. She just wants to shove him back to his own life, because he has one now. And whatever he was going through before is fixed for him now, and it wouldn't make him a shitty person this time to just leave her. To just let her go.

"Shhh," is all Joel says, his big, grand answer for everything. She's not going to fucking cry, not now, especially not when he takes her face so carefully in his murderer's hands. Ellie has only the breath to bleat his name, and it seems to bring back some old memory, because Joel immediately looks stricken, like she's struck a nail straight through his heart. Built another shitty Ellie-made chair into it. But he's not leaving. He's not going. And she's out of ways to convince him.

Ellie just closes her eyes. Fuck it. "There's no coming back," she warns and promises. "Not until this is done. And... if it means..."

"Not happening," he counters.

Again she shakes him off angrily, and this time turns on him, capturing Joel's left hand in both of hers to hold him still, hold him captive to make her point. Screw this, it's not like she wants to die. Well, maybe she wants to die a little, but even then that's not anyone's problem but her own. She gets to make the choice, and Ellie won't be bullied in this way. Fine, he wants to give it all up and come with her? There's a catch. It's her rules now. "You have to accept it. You have to deal with it."

Joel gives her a glance, then goes back to that finding-the-forest-more-interesting way of staring, his dark eyes on the trees. But his hand stays still in her grasp, heavy and domesticated.

He seems to give Ellie's terms some thought. "Can't promise that, baby girl," he answers, short and sweet as always. He looks back down on her. "But it just means finding another way."

Fury wells up from the pit of her stomach, burning the back of her throat with the bitter taste of bile. Ellie hates how easily Joel does this. Every fucking time. He makes her feel so little and young in just a few words. It can't happen this time. She tightens her fingers around his hand, needling down with her fingernails because she wants to make him hurt, and opens her mouth to repeat the point that he is not her fucking father-

But Joel is quick. Quick and deadly, and he only has to turn his hand to hack through Ellie's white-knuckled grip, manacling both her wrists in his fist. She thrashes once but can't budge him, not even an inch. It's a shock like a cold dunk of water to know just how fucking strong Joel is - and just how gentle he chooses to be with her. She always thinks herself tough, able to shove and kick and belt him around, but it's only ever because he let her. It's him just being patient. And tolerant.

"No," snaps Joel with flared teeth, " _you listen_." His other hand takes her cheek when Ellie struggles again, careful but final, the feel of him all scars and scraping calluses. "Your job is saving the fuckin' world? Good. Fine. I get it now. But my job is making sure you don't get the hell killed in the process. If all them out there want to get saved so bad, then they'll just have to work with me." His hands tighten when Ellie tries to look away, demanding her eyes, her attention, her compliance. "There's no one way around this."

Ellie feels her eyes burn. Don't cry in front of him. "That is such bullshit."

Joel's brows rise up. He grunts agreement. "Yeah, it sure is. It's bullshit, and nothing's fair, and you're stuck with me now. Get on and deal with it." He pauses, looking into Ellie's face, finding something in or under her features that makes him let her hands go, only to return his gently to her shoulder. His palm swallows its sharp little bone. "You're my girl now," he says, his voice lower, rougher than she's ever heard it. "You get it? You're mine. This is what living is. It's fighting. It isn't letting go. I'll never leave you ever again."

Her vision blurs and narrows out to nothing, until the only thing Ellie can see - until the only thing left in her world is Joel's hovering, frowning face. There's a ghost in it.

Fighting. Fighting to have just another moment with someone. Riley isn't dead any more. Riley is back. Riley is in those words, riding their working carousal and smiling at Ellie from some hiding place between Joel's promises. Riley, you sneaky motherfucker.

The past year catches up to Ellie in a heartbeat. It slaps her across the face, details and words and images and memories which never made sense but do now, connected together, as if all the limping life left in this fucked up world has come together to teach her some lesson. She gets it now. She forgives him.

Her head bows, and fresh tears roll down Ellie's face in silent streaks. And Joel, in that weird, superhuman way of his, lets a couple wet the ends of his fingers but doesn't reach to rub them away. He seems to know these are tears you don't dry. Good tears, tears fought for and earned, meant to stick around like another set of battle scars. He watches her with an old world patience. And he watches her cry without pity or judgment.

Ellie's first sob rattles up and makes her knees wobble. Joel seems to know what to do, and his strong hands guide Ellie until she's settled down on the ground, seated on dead leaves and forest mulch and crying her eyes out. She hears him settle with that old-joints sigh, joining her, not leaving her side for a second.

Finally, the great man shifts, his body language relenting just slightly, relaxing and opening in what Ellie sees is an unspoken invitation. Giving himself up if she so wants.

That stubborn part of her resists briefly, because she's strong and not a child. Then she gives way, broken down by so much patience and gentle handling, pushing herself up to her knees and reaching for him. Joel reacts automatically, no doubt with reflexes older than she is, pulling Ellie in and hiding her in his arms. It's the only safe place left for her in this world. The closest thing she's ever had to a home. Her face buries into the itchy plaid of his coat, and soon leaves a too-warm, wet spot from her muffled crying. Joel neither looks to mind nor notice. His hand finds her hair, tangling it on his calluses. He smells like gunpowder and horse hair and wood-shavings, and Ellie puts that to memory as she clings on. One day he'll be dead too, dead like the rest, if she doesn't do something fast.

Minutes pass. Ellie isn't sure how many. Joel probably knows. But her sobs recede in that time, and she's all cried out, left with hot eyes and a drippy nose and the ghost of a headache. She feels his jaw lean against her crown, his head turned to steady his full attention on the tree line. Ever watchful even as he holds her, and had somehow rearranged her to sling across his lap, her side pressed to his breathing chest, her ear pillowed to his heartbeat.

For the first time today, she thinks her next words through.

"You're such an asshole."

"Suppose I am."

She wets her lips. "You really think there's a way?"

Joel's thumb brushes back a stuck tress of hair from the drying corner of Ellie's eye. "May as well be."

He makes it all sound so simple. Last night, Ellie was set to tackle this journey alone. Now she can't imagine it without Joel there.

With some reluctance, she finally pulls away, gently this time, to find her legs and slowly pull her body back to her feet. Ellie looks down, and Joel remains where he is, comfortably seated in the ruins of their world, slinging one arm across his bent knee, the cracked face on his broken watch catching sunlight.

Ellie considers Joel, the only one who's ever stuck around. She offers him her hand. "Save the fuckin' world?"

To look at the man is a startling answer in itself. Joel meets Ellie's eyes. His are dark and dead in a way, long empty of passion or duty to the world, civilization, or the lingering dregs of the human race. And Ellie knows why. Joel won't say it to her, because he doesn't want to hurt her feelings, doesn't want to take her reason away, but he probably doesn't think any of this is worth saving.

Then he gives in, just a little at the edges, and though it's just the tiniest crease to his eyes, in that glimpse is unspeakable tenderness. For a moment, Ellie cannot breathe. The weight of it, that expression, crushes down on her chest like a solid, unmovable burden, the dragging chains of human attachment, the drowning weight of a father's love. The man who sees nothing left in the world, the land, or the people infecting it, gazes up at Ellie like she's some sort of religion - his last light.

It breaks her heart. He'd die protecting her. He'd live never letting her go. He'd help save the world she's sure he can't give a rat's ass about if it only ever means seeing her happy.

His hand takes hers.

"If that's what it takes, kiddo."

* * *

"C'mon then," Joel orders with a cross of his arms and a buck of his jaw. He surveys Ellie's campsite like it were her messy bedroom. He pays particular attention to her kicked pack and its contents spread all around. Kids. "Get your shit together. I ain't touching that mess you made."

Ellie huffs at that. No matter what's she's seen, what she's done, what the world's forced on her poor shoulders to have to bear, Joel still sees it in her. Still a child in lingering ways. She'll run off saving the god damned world but hell if she wants to pick up after herself. But he watches as she does, appreciative of the particular reverence Ellie pays her things, apologizing to her supplies with her hands as she re-packs them safely down. He likes witnessing that kind of respect. It's a skill that will keep her alive.

Though he said he wouldn't help, he still does a bit, and makes sure to grab up the switchblade he'd set down some time ago. Joel hands it back to Ellie. She takes the blade with a half-smile, looking down her nose at it, and he gleans the question off her. She really wants to ask how he got the knife off her, tucked in her hand in sleep. He feels charitable enough to answer her honestly too.

But Ellie just grunts to herself and says nothing. Joel reckons it's sometimes nice to hold onto a little mystery.

With a surprising obedience that he's regretful to admit won't last long, Ellie collects herself and leaves little evidence in the Wyoming brush that they were even there. She shoulders on her pack, gives a wiggle to settle its weight, and reaches back to free her trapped ponytail from her collar. Then the girl just stands there, looking up, trained by a year of their journeying for Joel to guide them off.

Amusement hitches in his chest. Joel suffers like hell to hide his smile, touched by how Ellie looks so young and earnest. Touched and a bit terrified. It hits home in that part of him, the part that never rests and always thinks the worst, and he imagines her spending the past day alone. He imagines never finding her, and Ellie having to spend all her days that way. He imagines her looking this way up at someone else, someone who isn't him, someone with ugly thoughts in their head. He can't ever let her out of his sight.

For now, at least, he can let himself enjoy this. She really does trust him again, and Joel feels so light he has to reward her. "What're you waiting on?" he intones, and he hears his repressed smile come out in his words. Poker face none what it used to be, old timer. "This is your show now. Lead the way."

Surprise gilds Ellie, makes her brighten and shine in a way Joel never thought he'd see again, and he treasures this moment forever. "Go on then."

Joel steps back, and like some queen's gallant knight, grabs and pulls back the corded branch of an aspen tree, creating Ellie a path out. He tips his head to motion her through, standing back, always patient.

His kid huffs at the show, rolling her eyes, but obliges him good-naturedly. She steps through. "I could get used to this."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm creating a monster," Joel says. He watches over her turned back with transparent warmth. "Now hold up, Custer. We do have to stop back in Jackson first. I owe Tommy that much. After that, it's all going to be you. So steer us right."

Ellie pivots on her heel and tosses a salute. There's distance in her face - he knows she'll be having a time of it to go back and say a proper good-bye, but it'll do her good - but she seems to get over the discomfort reasonably well.

Joel sees it on her - the thing people used to call a sea change. She's different than just days ago, shades of something inching back that he feared lost forever back in Colorado. He spent sleepless nights resigned that she was gone, the Ellie he knew, and this fucked up world cut something precious out of her that he'd never be able to put back. Seeing this gives him hope. If his lies and Jackson's warmth couldn't do it, then there has to be something else. Something he may not know until he sees it. Something that may take a second journey to find.

Ellie may never be at peace, but he's prepared to do whatever it takes to see her get close enough. She was right. He does have a life in Jackson. He could have even made a home. It hurts deep in his chest to leave it. It pains his joints and bones to know what lies ahead. But not even a thousand Jacksons mean anything to that brief, minute glance his little girl sneaks back.

"Sooooo," Ellie declares almost shyly, her first extended olive branch. "I brought my pun books."

He laughs, and loudly. "On second thought, I change my mind. You're on your own."

The man waits until Ellie lingers far enough ahead. Then he takes his hand off the pulled aspen branch and lets it swing back to place, exposing what its bough was blocking. He removes his body from its deliberate staging, masking a particular line of sight, and moves to follow her. Joel leaves in his wake, already forgotten, the cold corpses of three men. Three men who last night smelled fire smoke and came just a little too close. Three men whom Joel tracked in time before they could even get a sniff of something not theirs. Three men whose faces Ellie may not place, though she at four feet away would surely recognize their crotches.

Peace still has a price, and Joel thinks there are still some things in this world his girl never needs to know.


End file.
